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My Writing Philosophy - Writing Parents
So, I decided to re-watch Stewie is Enceinte because that's something you do... when you have way too much time on your hands. It's not going to be my next review (I need the unlimited time cap for now), but it's another issues-fueled review. I bring this up because... it's a lot like Peter-Assment. It tries to convey an issue, but does so... so poorly. And it's not an unimportant issue either. Honestly, I already feel that if I review that episode it's... going to be difficult. The trope is called "The Baby Trap." It's when someone, usually a woman, deliberately causes a pregnancy without their partner's consent. In the "best" case scenario, it's to try to salvage a relationship. In the "worst" case scenario, it's to use someone else for child support. By the way, pregnancy is one of those things that makes equality... really, really tough. We can have a system that endorses a man abandoning his family, or we can have a system that endorses and encourages this. With how current laws are written, it's an either-or thing. Both are terrible, terrible things to do. Sex and pregnancy causes a lot of trouble in the equality sphere. I'm sure we'll get there, and I'm fairly sure something might come up in a review or two. When I get to that review, I'll be talking about a few things. Like... people who are usually forced to do something against their will are shit at it. Especially when it comes to parenthood. This often drives the partner away and it sows resentment to both the kids and the partner. Keep in mind, I've been the victim of both of these behaviors, as a child. A birth father who was never there and a step-father who was abusive and forced to be kept in the relationship through family obligations. The thing is... it's not often seen as a negative thing in most media. Despite being a very negative thing, and in the eyes of most decent people, would probably be considered a "deal breaker." There's a media stereotype that... I find very destructive. We have a lot of stereotypes and preconceptions based on these false premises. A lot of shows, movies, or whatever will clearly show that the man in the family doesn't want to have kids, or didn't want to have kids. And I believe that it shapes public perception. A lot of how parents are currently written... drives me up a wall. The man is always aromantic, the woman is always asexual. Every kid is an accident that screwed up their high hopes and aspirations. Birth control? What the fuck is that? I get it, conflict breeds drama. But stereotypes breed problems. Yes, men usually have a more active sex drive than women. Honestly that's where the stereotypes die though. Apparently more men than women want children in this day and age, and well... you go looking for statistics on what percentage of pregnancies was unwanted. Of all people in any given country. But if you believed anything in media, no man ever wants a kid, and the only reason a woman would ever want sex is to have a kid. Obviously not all women want children, and the women who don't will make it clear. You don't hear many men saying that they want kids. Maybe that's for... other reasons and stereotypes that I'm sure I'll also get a chance to talk about, but a man clearly saying he wants kids is uncommon at best (in media). I do believe that these stereotypes somewhat fuels public perception. I'm very careful how I write parents. I put more detail into them than any other type of character. Each of them are as different as real parents in reality, but I have a few main guidelines. Unless a parent is CLEARLY an abusive villain and portrayed that way, they planned to be a parent. Obviously this isn't how it works in real-life. But I don't care how dramatic realizing that an accident can be happy is. I feel that there's way too much of that in media, and if you use either sex here, you'll get very dangerous and annoying stereotypes. If you used a man in that story, it's everything I wrote above, and if it's a woman, you might end up insulting the ones that want to stay childless. And keep in mind, I don't write them so arrogant that they can't see or understand why other people wouldn't want to be parents. If Little Cassie taught me anything, I don't like writing abusive parents. The scenes I wrote in Little Cassie with excessive abusive were hard to write and they're very hard for me to read. I'm not saying that I won't write future things and stories about abuse, but abuse will only be contained to those specific stories. And no, just because the relationship isn't abusive doesn't mean there aren't any conflicts. That's absurd. Even the happiest families annoy each other in one way or another. As for portraying both the man and woman as both romantic and sexual... well, that's a sometimes thing. I do write a lot for kids, remember. But if I were to write something like Family Guy or Family Matters. Just a family sitcom thing, absolutely. Not all time every time, but it would definitely come up occasionally. You know, instead of the man wanting sex and the woman wanting to go on some kind of date or something, and neither wants the other thing. And sometimes that gets used as leverage, which doesn't strike me as healthy. Yeah, I really hate the Awful Wedded Life trope. Like... literally every part of the formula I hate. From the dumbass dads, to essentially explaining the whole awful scenario on pregnancy, to portraying family life as the worst possible thing. And don't get me wrong, sometimes marriages crash and burn. Sometimes marriage is a mistake. Some couples abuse and manipulate each other in all kinds of horrid ways. And divorce has literally ruined lives. Media is not about reality. A lot of it is getting away from reality. And like I've repeatedly said, these tropes are stale as shit. Would writing like... say a sitcom... be more difficult if the family was completely happy? If we're talking about a family show (like PG-13), that takes place completely in the real world... I don't know. Definitely going to try it some point, because I literally have time to do everything. I mean the Family Guy style show is like the only thing I haven't tried yet. All I know is that it's gonna be fun reviewing ''Stewie is Enceinte ''in the future. Category:Miscellaneous